China Hacked Email Systems of US Congressional Committee Staff (ft.com) 40
China has hacked the emails used by congressional staff on powerful committees in the US House of Representatives, as part of a massive cyber espionage campaign known as Salt Typhoon. An anonymous reader shares a report: Chinese intelligence accessed email systems used by some staffers [non-paywalled source] on the House China committee in addition to aides on the foreign affairs committee, intelligence committee and armed services committee, according to people familiar with the attack. The intrusions were detected in December.
The attacks are the latest element of an ongoing cyber campaign against US communication networks by the Ministry of State Security, China's intelligence service. One person familiar with the attack said it was unclear if the MSS had accessed lawmakers' emails. The MSS has been operating Salt Typhoon for several years. It allows China to access the unencrypted phone calls, texts and voicemails of almost every American, and in some cases enables access to email accounts. Salt Typhoon has also intercepted the calls of senior US officials over the past couple of years, said people familiar with the campaign.
The attacks are the latest element of an ongoing cyber campaign against US communication networks by the Ministry of State Security, China's intelligence service. One person familiar with the attack said it was unclear if the MSS had accessed lawmakers' emails. The MSS has been operating Salt Typhoon for several years. It allows China to access the unencrypted phone calls, texts and voicemails of almost every American, and in some cases enables access to email accounts. Salt Typhoon has also intercepted the calls of senior US officials over the past couple of years, said people familiar with the campaign.
How are they allowed to do this? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:How are they allowed to do this? (Score:4, Interesting)
If they are that good maybe they should kidnap ours?
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No, they like Trump exactly where he is right now, an imbecile in charge of their greatest Geo-political rival.
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Nope. China is too big to fail.
And we have not yet learned that lesson.
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What will her excuse be now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cybersecurity falls under the DHS, if only there was a group dedicated to securing the governments networks [cnbc.com]
But you know, I have confidence that getting the team together and digging through the evidence and with some real hard work and gumption they will discover a way to blame Joe Biden for this.
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Yes. Why are there "email systemS" used by Congressional staff? Those systems should be central, compartmentalized and secured. Need justification? FOIA.
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Blame Hunter Biden's laptop.
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I have a letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials, that Hunter Biden's laptop isn't real, and therefore blameless. No doubt some of those signers would also claim that this story is also false and, we have nothing to fear from China.
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"some of those signers would also claim that this story is also false and, we have nothing to fear from China."
Oh really? Name one. In reality those same people never stop fearmongering about Russia and China.
at least 30 years now (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:at least 30 years now (Score:5, Funny)
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From TFA:
The White House and the offices of the four committees reportedly targeted in the surveillance sweep did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
They did respond. But it went straight to everyone's junk folder.
stand accused of gathering data on wide swathes of Americans' telephone communications and intercepted conversations, including those between prominent U.S. politicians and government officials.
Time to start kicking some ass in the US telecom sector, IMO.
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Time to start kicking some ass in the US telecom sector, IMO.
Most likely, the Chinese infiltrators are merely using the spying infrastructure that the US government forced the telecom companies to install.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Email should not be particularly vulnerable. Surely, they are using MFA?
So what's the NSA up to? (Score:3)
Let's hope they're doing as much. The Chinese are unlikely to publicise when someone does pull a stunt like this...
Re: So what's the NSA up to? (Score:3)
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At CES there was a robot clerk that spoke 50 languages. Perhaps the US has something equivalent.
Everybody calm down (Score:2)
Let's not bicker and argue over who hacked who. China has huge... burgeoning economies of scale.
Oh no! (Score:1)
Bad, bad China!
Anyway... I guess I'll have lasagna for dinner tonight.
Cool (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they can release the Epstein files.
aaaaaand, what did Congress do? (Score:1)
Fact Free Clickbait (Score:2)
From the article:
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
The FT cited a person familiar with the campaign as saying it was unclear whether the attackers had accessed lawmakers' emails in the intrusions
So the reality of these articles is, they don't know if anyone had access to emails and they don't know who "anyone" is.
The headline is utter horseshit.
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The issue isn't that they accessed emails, they had access to staff emails. The question is if they got into the head honcho's email or only of those under him.
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Your daily anti commie gobbledygook. Given the size of these organisations couldn't they write their own platform. Mix-and-match so a “computer” virus couldn't spread within the system.
CyberInsecurity: The Cost of Monopoly [schneier.com]
“How the Dominance of Microsoft's Products Poses a Risk to Security”
Russia did this first (Score:2)
If I recall correctly, Russia hacked the emails of both Republicans and Democrats, releasing embarrassing data from Democratic email accounts and using the data stolen from Republicans to compromise those politicians. Would have been in the "Hillary Clinton for President" timeframe.
Good people are in USA; Bad people are outside (Score:1)
It is of course clear that USA does not spy on China, or Europe, or Russia, or Venezuela, or...
Could it be possible, sooner or later, to stop all these hypocrisies and start to understand that we are all human beings, with perhaps some exceptions?